1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to data protection and, more particularly, to reparse point handling during data protection activities such as archival and/or deduplication.
2. Description of the Related Art
As businesses increasingly rely on computers for their daily operations, managing the vast amount of business information generated and processed has become a significant challenge. Most large businesses have a wide variety of application programs managing large volumes of data stored on many different types of storage devices across various types of networks and operating system platforms. These storage devices can include tapes, disks, optical disks, and other types of storage devices and often include a variety of products that can be produced by different vendors. The storage devices can be included in storage area networks (SANs), which can include hundreds of storage devices (or more). To preserve data, it is often desirable to archive the data distributed among a business's storage devices. Unfortunately, however, the complexity of managing data that is stored, archived, and/or deduplicated tends to increase with the number of storage devices being used to store that data.
While the embodiments of the application are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments are provided as examples in the drawings and detailed description. It should be understood that the drawings and detailed description are not intended to limit the embodiments to the particular form disclosed. Instead, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.